I couldn’t wait to see the Cincinnati area code appear on my phone screen, but by the time the call ended, I wished it never came.

It was a Friday afternoon – Aug. 25, 2023. I had worked from home that morning. Our Summer Fridays at work were in full force and everyone signed off at noon. Zach Bryan’s album was newly released and I had just finished sitting in the backyard with the dogs listening to a song called “Fear and Fridays.”

“I got a fear, dear, that it’s gonna end,” he sings as I listened … on a Friday.

I didn’t realize the correlation until later.

My English Setter Winston was wearing a camo blue Suitical, a much more comfortable alternative to a cone post-surgery. A week and a day prior he underwent a splenectomy at Cincinnati MedVet to remove a growing tumor on his spleen. Buttoned up like a child’s long underwear onesie, his long flowing white hair was sticking out anywhere it could.

I was sitting on the couch when I saw the 513 pop up. As soon as I answered with a “hello,” the dogs sprang to their feet and began barking. A Pavlov’s dog effect from the days of working fully remote during the pandemic where I would let them outside to explore the yard every time a Zoom call began. I quickly rushed to the laundry room to open the backdoor to let them out.

As soon as I heard the voice on the other end of the line, I knew it was bad news. The phone call was to reveal the histopathology of the recently removed splenic tumor. I was ready to frantically scribble notes on a scrap piece of paper using the top of my washing machine as a hard base, but the sadness in his voice stopped me in my tracks.

Winston’s vet Dr. Santos carefully delivered his monologue. I could tell it was not his first time delivering this kind of news and it wouldn’t be his last.

“I’m so sorry, Emily,” he said softly. “But I don’t have good news. The tumors were cancer. Hemangiosarcoma. A very aggressive cancer. We usually lose dogs within three months after surgery. Even though we removed the tumors, it will metastasize quickly in other places. Chemotherapy prolongs life expectancy but won’t cure. I can transfer you over to our oncology department to see about setting an appointment up. I believe they have an opening in a couple weeks from now. You can always get on the cancellation list if something opens up sooner.”

My mind raced as he continued speaking. I immediately felt my eyes land on Winston through the glass doors of our laundry room. He was taking a poop out in the yard. In his Suitical onesie. I wanted to SCREAM. I had forgotten to undo it and roll it up – a habit we quickly learned after accidentally letting him out with it on the first time a week ago. One quick wash later for both his outfit and him, we promised to not let that happen once more. But in the commotion of answering the phone call I had been dreaming of every night, I had failed him yet again.

The terror and frustration were swirling all around me. I wanted to tell Dr. Santos: “But we can’t do chemotherapy in Cincinnati. We don’t live there. We actually live three and a half hours away. I took a day off for the surgery consultation and I worked from a hotel his surgery and recovery day. I don’t have the vacation days to travel to Cincinnati for each chemo. I don’t even know if I have the money to pay for chemo.”

I wanted to tell him my dog was about to be covered in his own feces from my own careless mistake and that he hadn’t even healed from one surgery yet. We weren’t ready to start another health crisis. We hadn’t even recovered financially or emotionally from the first one.

But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I remembered all the statistics I had read about veterinarians committing suicide at terrifying rates. About their thankless profession, rising costs of vet schools, about caring for patients that can’t tell them what’s wrong, and about the hashtag Not One More Vet.

So instead, I thanked him. I told him that Winston wouldn’t be here without the successful surgery and he bought us more time. That I would always be grateful to him. Dr. Santos then thanked me, said his goodbyes, and that he was transferring me to oncology.

By the time the receptionist connected with me, the weight of it all was hitting me. Heavy tears flowed freely and she knew it. I couldn’t hide it any longer. She quickly scheduled an oncology appointment in Cincinnati for a couple weeks out that I wouldn’t keep. My brain was in complete disarray to communicate that the logistics simply weren’t possible and I found myself going through the motions. (Eventually Winston would receive chemo closer to home with our specialists who originally detected the tumor.)

The aftermath of that phone call looked a little like this … I think … honestly, it was all a blur from that moment on. I got the dogs inside the house once more. I gave Winston and his Suitical a bath. Hung it up to dry, put him in a cone again temporarily. I called my husband Nathan at work as an absolute wreck. I sobbed alone for the next three hours, so much so that I made myself physically ill. I took a few minutes to post on Winston’s Instagram and broke the news. I felt consumed by anticipatory grief for the first time in my life.

Lastly, I sat with Winston for a long time, hugged his neck, the first of many times I did this in the months that would follow, and promised him we would do every thing in our power to fight this for him. And fight we did.